


after the fall

by ninemoons42



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: A Death in the Family, Drinking & Talking, Grief/Mourning, Inspired by Music, Inspired by a Musical, M/M, References to Suicide, Singing, Smoking, Songfic, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 14:00:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/598542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42





	after the fall

title: after the fall  
author: [](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/profile)[](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/)**ninemoons42**  
word count: approx. 1140  
fandom: X-Men: First Class [movieverse]  
characters: Charles Xavier, Erik Lehnsherr. Mention is made of an original female character.  
rating: PG-13  
notes: I do not know what possessed me to write about Charles and Erik singing [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJnjcX8skXk) as a duet. [You might need tissues if you click that link. Hint: Michael Ball, fifteen years ago.] Trigger warnings for discussion of suicide and of deaths in the family.  
Thanks to [Nie](http://nieniekoto.tumblr.com) for the flailing.

  
Erik comes home early on a Wednesday evening to the ashy smell of cigarettes. They’re his own brand, of course, familiar acrid mentholated tang and the sharp sulfur of a struck match still lingering in the air.

The apartment is shrouded in darkness, but after his eyes adjust he can easily make out the hulking outline of the trolley that Charles uses to lug his papers and books around in.

As he stands there, irresolute and still in the act of shrugging off his jacket, the light in the kitchen clicks on.

He tries to quell the spike of worry in his gut, and steps out of his shoes, steps through the shadows of the house, calling softly, “Charles.”

“I’m here,” is the equally subdued answer.

When Erik gets to the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, he freezes for a long moment, torn between fear and admiration.

Charles is sitting atop the kitchen table, tucked into himself. Knees drawn up beneath his chin. Arms corded with long wiry muscle wrapped around himself, and in his left hand there is a half-smoked cigarette, glowing ember and trail of blue smoke drifting slowly upward.

He looks haunted, Erik thinks, and he looks beautiful, but this is not the Charles that he knows well - Charles who still manages to find the right _bon mot_ , the right kind of horrible pun, the right way to ease grief and tension and pain and heartache.

Erik can still very vividly remember Charles humming a familiar, gentle air from _Les Misérables_ \- one of Fantine’s themes - as they stood together over a grave marked with the word _Lehnsherr_. A soft song for his parents who had always loved the novel and had been ardent fans of the musical as well; a song to ease away terrible sadness.

There is no spark in these dark blue eyes, full of unshed tears.

There is a crack in Charles’s voice when he speaks at last: “You were in your office today. You were busy. The world falls away when you’re busy.”

“I’m sorry, if I’ve missed anything - ” Erik begins, still confused, and now edging towards frightened, because Charles is pale and shaking.

“You - you have missed something, but I can’t be angry because of it. I’m glad you missed it. I’m _glad_ you weren’t - ”

Erik moves, then, finally crossing the distance between them, landing heavily in one of the chairs so that he’s looking up into Charles’s face. “ _What happened._ ”

Charles closes his eyes, and when his words come out they are in broken, disjointed whispers. “Suicide attempt. Gone horribly right. Someone jumped off the roof of - of my building. I saw her shadow as she fell. They cleared us all out. I - I walked home, or most of the way home. I can’t remember, I just - wanted to be gone from there. I - your cigarettes taste awful. But I needed one.”

“Charles,” Erik says, and words fail him after that - the only thing he can do is hold him, and he does, gathering Charles close. He presses kisses into Charles’s forehead, his temple, his hair, his damp cheeks.

“I knew her, briefly,” Charles says, and with the words come his tears, silently falling. “I would talk to her if I happened to run into her at the coffee shop. We would talk, for a few minutes, while waiting in line. She would wave at me if she saw me in the corridors. I would wave back. I - did I miss something? Could I have done anything to help?”

“I - I don’t know,” Erik says, gently, honestly. “And you don’t know, and it’s going to be there in your mind for a while. I understand that at the very least.”

“I don’t want to carry it - her - around right now,” Charles says. “I’d rather forget.”

Erik nods. “How do you want to do that.”

Charles slides off the table, and goes into the next room; Erik listens to him opening cupboards and murmuring to himself.

Charles reappears with two tumblers and the crystal bottle of scotch.

“Food?” Erik offers.

Charles shrugs, and sinks into the chair next to Erik’s. He pours with unsteady hands.

By the fourth round, Charles’s attempts at smiles no longer look like grimaces.

After the seventh, Erik needs to concentrate in order to make sandwiches - there’s not much in the pantry, but he smiles a little when Charles tucks into the cheese and pickle sandwich with muted enthusiasm.

It happens after the tenth round: Erik wobbles to his feet to put the dishes in the sink, and when he turns around again Charles is swaying where he sits, and his eyes are closed and his head is thrown back, and his hands are clenched into fists as he begins to sing.

_There’s a grief that can’t be spoken_  
 _There’s a pain goes on and on_  
 _Empty chairs at empty tables_  
 _Now my friends are dead and gone_

Erik sings the second verse for him:

_Here they talked of revolution_  
 _Here it was they lit the flame_  
 _Here they sang about tomorrow_  
 _And tomorrow never came_

Charles’s voice is soaked in scotch and sadness and a terrible piercing strength, and the lament echoes throughout their kitchen, poor acoustics and all.

It hurts, like acknowledging an injury and beginning to heal, and it knocks the breath out of Erik as Charles sings, tears leaving trails through the lines on his face.

He doesn’t know where he gets the strength, or the voice, to join Charles in the final lines.

_Oh my friends, my friends_  
 _Don’t ask me what your sacrifice was for_  
 _Empty chairs at empty tables_  
 _Now my friends will sing no more_

In the ringing silence after the last note falls away, there is a sob, and Erik is moving faster than he can think to catch Charles as he topples out of his chair.

“I can’t - I can’t save the world, can I,” Charles gasps.

Erik closes his eyes in a futile effort to stop his own tears. Too late. They are falling into Charles’s hair.

“We cannot,” he says, choking on the words. “We can’t even always save ourselves.”

“Then why - ”

“Why are we here? Maybe because it is us who must do something. Maybe because it is us who must sing for others.”

Charles wraps his arms around Erik’s waist, and holds on. “And if it’s me? If I fall? What will happen to you, Erik?”

“I don’t know,” Erik says.

“I don’t either,” Charles says.

“We’ll think of something,” Erik says. “Even if it is nothing more but to mourn and get up and keep on going.”

There is a long silence that is finally broken by Charles’s whisper of “Yes.”  



End file.
